”Sri Lanka is full of long, elegant words that glide effortlessly off the tongue: Tissamaharama, Jayasuriya, Trincomalee, Parakramabahu, Polonnaruwa, Radawaduwa, Aravinda da Silva, Nuwara Eliya, Gunasekera”. Twenty years of turmoil have failed to wipe the smile from the face of what Marco Polo called the most beautiful island in the world.

”Wandering around Istanbul, you can still feel an exciting shiver of danger, even without four kilos of hashish strapped to your waist like Hayes. But the irony is that there is possibly no safer city to walk at night and I have learned that in bad times and sudden disasters there are few better people to have on your side than the Turks.” Ben Mallalieu visits the world’s oldest city.